Beschreibung:

Attributed to Giovanni Francesco Romanelli (1610-1662). Moses striking water from the rock, circa 1640-50, large-scale composition in pen and brown ink with brown wash over black chalk, on two conjoined sheets of laid paper, with watermark of an anchor within a circle with letters (J M ?) and star above (similar to Gravell Anchor 440.1 or 442.1), additional studies in black chalk of Carita Romana to verso, neat archival restorations to sheet edges and central crease, with some small losses, sheet size 390 x 532 mm (15.3 x 21 ins) (Qty: 1) Provenance: Chiswick Auctions, Old Master Paintings and Drawings, 27 August 2020, lot 31. Drawings by Romanelli are often executed in pen and brown wash over black chalk, as here. The present work may relate to the series of four paintings on the life of Moses by Romanelli's teacher Pietro da Cortona and Nicolas Poussin commisioned by Amadeo dal Pozzo, Marchese di Voghera of Turin, a cousin to the scholar, antiquary and secretary to Cardinal Barberini, Cassiano dal Pozzo. For a similar work see Ciro Ferri (1634-1689), Moses striking water from the rock, black chalk, (Royal Collections Trust, Blunt & Cooke, The Roman Drawings of the XVII and XVIII Centuries in the Collection of Her Majesty the Queen at Windsor Castle, 1960, 125). An engraving after this drawing by the printmaker Pietro Aquila (1650-1692) was published by Giovanni Giacomo de Rossi in Rome in the 1670's. After first studying under Domenichino, Romanelli entered the studio of Pietro da Cortona whose style greatly influenced his own. From 1631, while working as Cortona's assistant on the decoration of the Palazzo Barberini in Rome (purchased in 1625 by Maffeo Barberini, later Pope Urban VIII), Romanelli contributed to the major ceiling fresco of Divine Providence as well as the decoration of the private chapel, where the Adoration of the Shepherds is generally attributed to him in its entirety (1632-39). Pope Urban VIII also commissioned Romanelli for a number of other works intended for the Vatican: the St Peter Healing the Sick, now in the Museo Storico Artistico, Vatican (1636-37), the frescoes depicting the life of Matilda of Tuscany (for the Sala della Contessa Matilda,1637-42), and the ceiling fresco Pasce oves meas for the Galleria delle Carte Geografiche (1638). The Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple, painted in 1638-42 for the Cappella Colonna in St Peter's (now in Santa Maria degli Angeli), was the artist's first major public altarpiece. As superintendent of the Barberini tapestry manufactory, Romanelli also made cartoons for the series of seven tapestries of Putti with Swags, in imitation of Raphael's famous set of tapestries made for Leo X, as well as the cartoons for a second series of tapestries representing the Life of Christ, in the Palazzo Barberini, Rome (both series 1637-43).